Re-introduction of red-billed oxpecker in central Zimbabwe

Summary

The red billed oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) had been extirpated from much of Zimbabwe by the 1970s due to widespread use of arsenical cattle dips, which poisoned the birds as they fed on ticks from treated livestock. As dip use declined and safer acaricides took over, the Zimbabwe Ornithological Society and Bulawayo Museum captured 22 oxpeckers at Rukometjie Research Station and released 19 onto Shangani Ranch in central Zimbabwe in October 1992, in an area with abundant game and cattle offering tick prey. The birds were held briefly, ringed, and released as a single cohort, then monitored through regular ranch sightings and reports from surrounding properties. The population bred successfully and expanded, with birds recorded roughly 90 km from the release site by 1998, indicating a self-sustaining, spreading population rather than a static reintroduced group. The main goal of restoring a natural biological check on tick burdens was only partly realized, since farmers continued relying on chemical dips rather than the birds, but establishing a persisting wild population represented a genuine conservation success in its own right. The project rates itself Highly Successful, citing the survival, breeding and geographic spread of the reintroduced population as clear evidence that a self-sustaining group had been re-established in a region from which the species had disappeared for two decades.